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Daily Pickings is a blog on issues and events related to the work of the Critical Thinking project and invariably references videos, articles, books and academic papers. Accumulation of these materials adds to the "Critical Thinking reference library". Use the search facility to find articles on specific topics or you can browse the titles of every Dailly Pickings article since inception via the Site Map for which you need to be registered.

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Critical Thinking is a collaborative, educational project relying on contributions from diverse sources.

Daily Pickings has referred in the past to the Yinon Plan, Israel's imperial ambition to dominate the Middle East on behalf of the Structural Elite but the alliance with Turkey (as a member of NATO) adds a new dimension to reconfiguring the Middle East.

Erodoğan and Netanyahu Declare War By James PetrasUltimately, Netanyahu intends to take care of his ‘Palestinian Problem’ for good: complete the conquest and occupation of Palestine and expelling the Palestinian people from their homeland – the single most important foreign policy and domestic goal of the Jewish state.Erdoğan’s newly declared war on the Kurds has complex domestic and regional components

Ultimately, this marriage of convenience may see these "allies" going to war, given Erodogan's ambition to re-establish the Ottoman empire. But in the meantime, it is the Palestinians and Kurds who are on the receiving end of the full onslaught of the most sophisticated weaponry on the planet, supplied, aided and abetted by the US, UK, France and other NATO vassal states and of course their proxy, Islamic State.

Peoples of the west are complicit by their refusal to recognise the criminal nature of their governments, media and institutions, but ignorance is no excuse.

The only solution is to follow the lead of the Kurds and dissolve centralised power which is invariably manipulated for the benefit of the few.

Switch on the television, radio or look at any newspaper and you are immediately given the impression that Britain is about to be invaded. One is led to believe this is an existential threat; they're amassing in Calais and forcing themselves onto vehicles bound for Old Blighty, via the Channel Tunnel.

And just who are they?They are Migrants!

They are more likely refugees escaping the chaos, violence and misery that we in west have helped to drum up in the Middle East and Africa in our post colonial grasping for treasure. But that narrative is too complicated. So they have become the bogeymen, known by official channels backed by media as migrants, possibly because if they called them refugees we would have to look after them. Frankie Boyle hit the nail on the head when describing this as intellectual flexibility that allows people to express grief for the migrants who drown in the Mediterranean and hatred for the ones who survive.

So don't waste time in finding the common humanity that binds us to these vulnerable individuals that places importance on learning and faith. Ignore their dreams of education, freedom and work, from inside the desperate conditions within the jungle camp/shanty town a few miles north of Calais. Instead we send the naval destroyers into the Mediterranean to intercept and send back the vulnerable. And where we once celebrated individuals jumping the Berlin Wall when it suited our narrative of freedom, we now show humans wriggling through fencing and barbedwire as sinister invaders. The answer? Send more money for bigger and better fencing and send in the army!

There are many aspects of the media coverage in this so called attack on our country to be concerned about. But perhaps the main one is the sheer mass of frenzied reporting it's producing when another far greater threat to the fabric of our society is barely given a mention: TTIP

The EU soon intends to sign two far-reaching trade agreements: one with Canada (CETA = Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) and one with the USA (TTIP = Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). The official line is that this will create jobs and increase economic growth. However, the beneficiaries of these agreements are not in fact citizens, but big corporations (from Stop TTIP website)

More responsible climate scientists are distancing themselves from the baseless claims in Hansen's study.

Hansen’s backfire by Judith Curry"The new paper, which Hansen told me he’s been working on for eight years, was being rushed into public view with the hope of influencing negotiations at the December round of talks in Paris aimed at crafting a new global climate change agreement." - Andy Revkin